Friday, May 18, 2012

I was Stumbling around, today, and found this article. To be honest, I've got mixed emotions on it.

I'm sitting here typing on an HP laptop. I chose this laptop because my laptop is my life and HP (and Dell, too) has superlative service when it comes to getting you quickly and conveniently back online in the face of inevitable breakage. Can't even come close to saying the same for Apple, Toshiba, Asus, etc. as they all have "service" offerings that are like a nightmarishly bad joke (seriously: if you own any of their products, buy a spare). The prospect of the likely loss of a quality service offering is a bit of a downer.

I also work for an organization that bought big into HP's software suites. Many of those products show a lot of promise. However, many are also poorly executed and even more poorly engineered, tested and supported.

HP tries to sell us on their professional services to make up for some of the inherent shortfalls int their products. However, when we've had the "experts" from HP's Professional Services group come on site (specifically that group - folks in their other groups - the ones that aren't really supposed to live or die based on their expertise and ability to provide post-sales services), it's been an exercise in pain and frustration from the abysmal quality of the people they send.

This probably comes as a good example of, "you get what you pay for". HP's services folks seem to be of the "whoever's cheapest" variety. I've worked in the professional services realm and "you get what you pay for" definitely comes into play in that line of business.

According to the linked article, HP is supposedly hoping to find salvation in the same path that other companies have - by selling professional services. Unfortunately, when the people that represent your company as "experts" and "professionals" come across so appallingly-poorly, it makes hiring qualified folks that much more difficult. Much as birds of a feather flock together, elite talent tends to avoid working for places they perceive to be well beneath their talents. So, this makes it a self-perpetuating problem and makes salvation through that pursuit even harder.

Oh well, should be interesting to see how this all plays out. I have to deal with some pretty hateful design flaws in HP products. This doesn't bode well for those flaws getting adequately addressed any time soon.